Talk:Deathrock

Inclusion of 'Deathrock friendly' bands

I question the band list. Should earlier British and worldwide bands with a 'death rock friendly' (for want of a better word) sound, but who were contemporaries with (if not indeed predecessors of) the early death rock scene but not part of it, be included here? Should they be retroactively assimilated into a genre/movement?

I'm thinking specifically about listing such as the Virgin Prunes, the Birthday Party, Sex Gang Children, etc. I don't believe any of these would have thought of themselves as 'death rock' bands, because that wasn't a term in currency in their respective scenes.

Or we can simply state that the list includes similar music even if the band wasn't 'death rock' per se, but was a similar 'post-punk' sound? —Morven 20:48, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

I was about to say pretty much the same thing - including the Birthday Party and Sex Gang Children here is retconning at best. Criteria for inclusion: 1. Clearly part of the US death rock scene as descended from LA in the late seventies; 2. self-labelled; 3. maybe notable common categorisation (on the level of listing the Sisters of Mercy as goth). I don't have time, but an article tweak and recategorisation is needed.

NB: there's an increasing number of goth bands labeling themselves death rock instead - e.g. the stuff Nik Ransom puts on at Dead & Buried in London of late (Devilish Presley, Zombina and the Skeletones, etc) - David Gerard 23:53, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I finally put together a list of deathrock friendly bands and included a link to it in the main article. FilmGal 02:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Reason for Revert

Deathrocker, the reason why I reverted your edits is because the early Hardcore Punk (Germs, Blackflag, Circle Jerks style) influence was cited by Filmgal from an interview with Dinah Cancer "The Deathrockers were splintered off from the punk/hardcore scene that was going on at the time". So your mass edit to the hardcore punk influence is very debatable. Also in line 101 which concerns the shift in goth music and the aversion of this shift by deathrockers you changed "shock rock" to "synthpop". Now i've seen from previous edits you don't seem to be a huge fan of synthpop, fair enough, but synthpop from bands like Devo, Gary Numan, Dead or Alive, Depeche Mode, Bronski Beat, and Soft Cell are still hugely popular with Goths and Deathrockers (when and if deathrock.com ever comes back online, just do a search of any of the above bands to see how well they are embraced within the current death rock scene). Not to mention the dominate synth drive in modern Deathrock bands like Subtonix, the Vanishing, Lost Sounds, and the Sixteens just to name a few. Let's discuss these issues before we make huge alterations to the article as it stands. Thanks--Adrift* 15:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Shock rock has never been used by Deathrock bands, synth pop has crept into the music in some of the newer bands.. which is a move away from the punk roots which that section of the article is addressing (Whether I'm a fan of that genre or not isn't really relevent; but it just so happens I do like Dead Or Alive.. if they even count, and some other groups)...

In the Rozz Williams article on here it stated that he disliked the Hardcore movement that "rednecks who used to beat up punks" hopped onto... a Rozz Williams opinion Vs. Dinah Cancer opinion would be a fruitless debate, hardcore is a sub-genre of punk (As is Deathrock), so it covers both fields adequetly, and at the time that 45 Grave formed (79), Black Flag were still a standard punk rock band anyway.

Generally Deathrock bands are more influenced by standard punk rock. Horror punk bands by Hardcore (The Misfits turned into a Hardcore band as were Samhain, Glenn Danzig is the most influential person in that movement).

- Deathrocker 18:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is arguing that Shock Rock has ever been used in Deathrock, however the part of the article we're addressing is in reference to the move of Goth music away from it's traditional roots towards rock bands that have taken on some aspects of the goth aesthetic and sound for their own and have airplay in clubs. Perhaps "Futurepop" should be added into the list, but I can't see why synthpop would be added since it's been a staple of the Goth canon of music for decades.

Rozz may have pronounced a dislike for hardcore punk musicians and fans, but that doesn't mean that hardcore punk music and style had zero influence on Deathrock. And we have citation of this in the article... Don't you think that, if these points are contentious, they ought to at least be discussed before being altered?--Adrift* 22:13, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I rewrote the sections in question and added three citations to support hardcore's influence on deathrock. The one writer refered to it as "pre-hardcore" while the others simply call it "hardcore". I think we'll be OK if we refer to it as "early hardcore". FilmGal 08:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I think "pre-hardcore" is probably a more fitting term, (With TSOL been the exception), considering when the bands in question formed the "Hardcore" groups such as Black Flag were still standard punk themselves. - Deathrocker 09:21, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I hate to keep butting heads with you Deathrocker, but I have an issue with your current edits to the entry. Deathrock isn't any more a subgenre of punk than No Wave would be (or most New Wave for that matter). A good example of a true sub-genre would be styles like hardcore, crust, ska, straight-edge, pop, anarcho, etc.. Off-shoot seems like a perfectly fine word to describe what Deathrock is in corrolation to Punk. In fact, I feel the article is near perfect as it stands. Why not discuss future edits here so we can all come to some kind of consensus on the article.--Adrift* 02:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be complaining, just to be complaning now...

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/subgenre describes a sub-genre as "one of several categories within a particular genre", thats exactly what Deathrock is.. it mixtes punk with elements of horror, as Oi! mixes punk with elements of pubrock and Pop Punk mixes punk with elements of pop... and so on and so fourth..

Its as much a sub-genre of punk as much as any other sub-genre, and thats the way its always been viewed. - Deathrocker 16:23, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

ok, i disagree, but whatever. it seems to me that your just editing the article at this point just to edit. the edits don't seem to serve much of a purpose, but i'm not going to bother reverting them or argue about it.--Adrift* 02:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

whatever comes out of this discussion, i'd just like to note that the list style formatting of the first paragraph is an ugly mess unlike anything thing else i've seen on wikipedia before, and really needs to be changed to properly flowing text that uses proper grammar to get it's point across. --MilkMiruku 14:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

another point; if deathrock can so easily be classed as a subgenre of hardcore punk, why does a quick search on the hardcore article turn up no mention of it? i'm not saying that's proof it's not a subgenre, as one thing i've noticed with music genre articles on wikipedia is that often people stick to a particular page, something they're confident they have a fair ammout of knowledge on, and don't venture further afield to add information to genres related to that topic --MilkMiruku 14:28, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll change it to an earlier intro paragraph from the page History soon. The intro paragraph pretty much negates the entire premise that "Wikipedia is not a dicitonary". WesleyDodds 23:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Citations

The Deathrock article now has 56 citations(!). In comparison, the gothic rock article has only 4 and the punk rock article has only 1. FilmGal 08:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Awesome! --Jakob Huneycutt 09:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad that all the info is being cited, but on the other hand a lot of citations have no real context. There's one for ever other sentence, and a lot of times it's hard to figure out what exactly is being cited. Some are also purely incidental. More clarification is needed with these citations. WesleyDodds 00:26, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

For Example:

The term deathrock was used interchangeably with gothic rock [1] until sometime during the mid 1990s when eventually deathrock as a label fell out of vogue and was seldom used except in reference to the Los Angeles bands 45 Grave and Christian Death.

I can't find anywhere in that link an explicit statement that death rock and gothic rock were interchangeable for a long period of time. As best it's implied; at worst it sounds like the writer of the article in the link is hopelessly confused. On top of that, industrial groups like Ministry are grouped in as "death rock". WesleyDodds 00:44, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

that's the problem with citing websites; books tend to be more reliable because only people really dedicated to documenting the music will write them and they've have specific references themselves, plus it's a lot harder to get a book published if it's crap, but anyone can create websites these --MilkMiruku 14:21, March 12 2006

There's no need to talk about me as if I never look at the discussion page! I'm the one responsible for the citations on this article, and they're there to prevent certain individuals from making constant (and highly questionable) revisions to the article. The citations regarding hardcore are one example - for some reasons, all references to hardcore being an influence on deathrock have repeatedly been deleted from this article. However, because of the citations, hardcore hasn't been edited out of the article (at least not yet). Also, that specific "used interchangeably" citation was used because the article itself uses terms deathrock and gothic rock interchangeably. If you can find another website which specifically states that the two terms were used interchangeably, then please use that one instead. I think it's important to note that they were used interchangeably because some people have tried to revise the article so that DR appears to be a recent development and suggested that it should be merged into the gothic rock article. FilmGal 05:43, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

My argument is that the citation does not do a good job of elaborating the point. Just because people try to revise the article in unfavorable ways is no reason to keep a bad citation. I'll certainly be on watch for people who try to edit the article in a way that marginalizes the topic, but our primary goal here is to present an encyclopedic entry on a topic, and notices regarding certain contentions with editing can be reserved for talk pages.

Also, a lot of the links on the page should probably be taken out, since they either push or break the guidelines regarding external links as stated on Wikipedia:External links. WesleyDodds 07:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

i wasn't talking about you, i was talking about web citations in general :p --MilkMiruku 15:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Well if this is going to be a bit of an issue, let's start going through the links and see which ones seem contentious and why and then come to an agreement to clean them out one by one. Oh and I agree with MilkMiruku that books and magazines would be nice to have citations from, but I don't recall ever seeing that they are necessarily preferred in Wiki policy (i may be wrong on that though).--Adrift* 18:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the article does present a very good encyclopedic entry on the topic of deathrock, and it is probably more informative and contains better researched information than many of the other music subgenre entries. What do you consider to be a "bad" citation?

In your opinion, which external links push or break the Wiki guidelines regarding external links? As far as I can tell, none of them fit the description of the 9 types of links to normally avoid. Our list of external links isn't much different than what's on the Punk rock entry, except instead of listing record labels we list DR clubs and instead of listing 30 second sound clips we list streaming radio sites.

As far as you being on watch for "people who try to edit the article in a way that marginalizes it", does this mean you wish to take on the role as the primary editor on the entry?

And, if you don't mind me asking, what is your interest in deathrock - your user page doesn't make any mention this as being one of your interests. We've had problems with people editing the article who weren't familar with the DR scene editing the article to include inaccurate information. FilmGal 05:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem with some of the citations is that they are only tangently related to the point being present, which defeats the purpose of a citation. The problem with the external links is that there are so many, and a lot of them are to radio stations and clubs. The article should link to a directory of such things instead of posting a large number of links.

And no, I'm not seeking to become the primary editor of the article. What I meant was that I would simply fix things when people try to mess around with them. I know that people have argued about the merits of death rock as its own separate page, and I'm willing to argue on its behalf to people who don't really know anything about it. I have an interest and knowledge of rock music in general, although I don't feel I need to explain that that results in me wanting to work on this page. I'm quite of aware of what death rock is and I like 45 Grave on occasion (could never get into Christian Death, though, and I'm more interested in early gothic rock anyways), but my main interest in the article is ensuring it is informative to people who don't know anything about the genre. And I feel the problem with the citations hinders that. WesleyDodds 10:56, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Emergence of Deathrock

Alot of later 80's bands have now been added to the "emergence of deathrock" and then kind of wrapped together with the 70's groups as kind of a "10-year emergence".

Seems like the mid 80's groups were more of a phase 2 in the movement. There was the punk offshoot bands of the late 70's that for the most part had no real knowledge of what was going on in Europe; and then there was the post-punk offshoots of the mid 80's, many of which were influenced by the original 70's bands and the "gothic" movement in Europe.

I would say that the bands listed in the article from the mid 80's really belong in there own "section" of the article -- Doesn't seem quite right that THE NAKED AND THE DEAD are lumped together with 45 GRAVE & THE FLESHEATERS.

I guess I would have included many of the bands listed under "Emergence of Deathrock" in the "Merger with Goth Rock" section instead.--MALCOMXBLISS 00:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey Malcolm...

You have a very good point. The 1984-85 bands of the East Coast and Midwest are really a totally different scene and genealogy from the circa 1979 West Coast bands.

I am the one who added more of the '80s bands from the former regions as I felt they were underrepresented. The only non-Cali bands listed before that were Theatre of Ice and The Naked and the Dead (my own band). That seemed odd to me, since the other bands I listed (Shadow of Fear and Gargoyle Sox in the Midwest, Holy Cow in New England, and Of a Mesh and Scarecrow in NYC) were important to their respective scenes.

I can tell you this: here in NYC, the California deathrock scene was pretty much a cipher in the first half of the '80s. As of 1985, none of those iconic West Coast bands (45 Grave, Christian Death, Kommunity FK) had toured on the East Coast. We never saw them play, and with the exception of 45 Grave (who were on a big indie, and got some college radio airplay), their records were hard to find and pretty much unknown to the average scene fan. I can definitely say that the NYC bands, Holy Cow, and the Midwest bands took almost zero influence from the California bands. We were focused across the Atlantic, not across the Rockies, and all of us took our main influence from the UK bands (Bauhaus, Banshees, Joy Division, Cure, Killing Joke, etc.) and not from LA. I remember it wasn't until the end of 1985 that I ever heard "Only Theatre of Pain," and none of us in NYC knew anything about Kommunity FK until we saw the "Something Inside Me Has Died" video on MTV late that year.

So....perhaps it is better to separate the early California scene from the mid-'80s East Coast/Midwest stuff. Do you want to separate it into sections? If you'd like my assistance, I'd be glad to help. Greg Fasolino 01:00, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The article doesn't conform to Wiki's guidelines on musical genres and will have to be reorganized - the "History" section has to be slightly condensed and a seperate "Artists" section needs to be started which focuses on the artists and bands. Ideally, most of the information about the bands would be presented in the "Artists" section, not the "History" section. Also, if you can include any citations with these changes, that would be great! Otherwise, you run the risk of people trying to delete the information and subjecting the article to aggressive (and inaccurate) rewrites. I started trying to bring the article a little closer to the guidelines by moving some of the information up to the top of the article in the characteristics section, but that needs to be elaborated on a little more - I'm not a musician so I'm a bit handicapped there. Maybe you guys would like to tackle that too. FilmGal 06:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Problems with the "Merger with Gothic Rock" section.

I'd rather not jump in and make any edits right now, but there are quite a few inaccuracies in the "Merger with gothic rock" section.

Sex Gang Children began in 1981, years before Specimen and ASF, and long before there was a Batcave club. They did not "debut" there.

Alien Sex Fiend were certainly very influenced by horror (I should know, I worked for them for years, writing their presskits and bios), but Sex Gang Children were not. Where is there any horror sound in Sex Gang? Their lyrics and style were about history, religion, politics, art, etc., not horror.

The Batcave scene was not called "positive punk." The Batcave was a club, not a specific *music style*. Sex Gang sound nothing at all like ASF. The former had tribal drumming, high-pitched glam vocals, and bass as lead instrument, while ASF had drum machine, deep vocals, keyboards, and no bass at all. Some of the positive punk bands played at the Batcave but that doesn't imply a musical relationship any more than if we were talking about the 1976 CBGB scene and we called it "CBGB music" despite the Ramones sounding absolutely nothing like Blondie or Talking Heads. Make sense?

"Positive Punk" never, ever referred to bands like Specimen and ASF. It referred to the slightly earlier (late 1982 rather than 1983) tribal-oriented dark post-punk bands like Sex Gang, Southern Death Cult, Blood & Roses, Brigandage, Ritual, etc., who were all heavily influenced by UK Decay, Theatre of Hate, and early Adam & the Ants.

You could say that the positive punk bands and the bands who developed at the Batcave scene (just ASF and Specimen, really) both had been dubbed as "gothic" by 1984-85.

I understand why the 1984-85 Midwest and East Coast bands were moved to this section, but I don't understand the last sentence at all in relation to that: "As a result, in the mid 1980s Deathrock and Batcave began merging with one forming gothic rock [37]." What do the East Coast and Midwest bands have to do with that? We (and I say we, referring to my band The Naked and the Dead and my friends in Of a Mesh, Scarecrow, Holy Cow, Gargoyle Sox, and Shadow of Fear) were not part of the California deathrock scene nor were we influenced by it, and we did not consider ourselves "Batcave." We were primarily influenced by the UK dark post-punk bands of 1979-81, and some of the positive punk bands as well. We didn't use the term deathrock (that was retroactively applied to differentiate that 1984-85 music from the later Sisters-type gothic rock); we called it post-punk and then at some point in 1985 we called it gothic as well, interchangeably. Greg Fasolino 04:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I say, be bold, and make edits where you deem they need to be made. What you're saying seems to make sence from what i've seen cited, there is a bit of conjecture that is probably misapplied here and there. My only contention is that in the 1979 film "They Eat Scum" by Nick Zedd, there's a "Deathrock" show in NYC. Not to say that had anything to do with the later post-punk bands of the mid 80s, but still note worthy. How does that fit in? Or does it? By the way, its awesome to see a couple of musicians involved in these scenes take an interest in this article... It can only help in making the article more historically accurate. --Adrift* 06:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Batcave as a specific genre...

Some newer bands call themselves "Deathrock/Batcave".. even though they've never set foot inside the Batcave club. Most of the newer bands who refer to themselves as so seem to be foreign (Mexican, French, Spanish, Eastern European)... perhaps something got lost in translation and after seeing the word "Batcave" associated with bands they're influenced by like Specimen, Sex Gang Children & Alien Sex Fiend. Maybe they presumed it was an actual genre? - Deathrocker 14:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I've never seen the Zedd film but as you can see on this site, the term "deathrock" was in use since the 1950s and didn't have the same musical meaning as it did after the 1979 LA bands made the term their own. Certainly there were no bands in NYC in 1979 that sounded anything like, say, Christian Death. There were certainly horrorpunk bands in NYC then, obviously Misfits but also the underrated band The Mad led by future horror-effects master Screaming Mad George. I have both of their 7-inches and from what I've read, they put on a wild, gory show. The music is straight-up punk rock, though. The Cramps were still in NYC at that time as well---why is there no mention at all in this article of The Cramps? Seems strange to me.

As for the Batcave thing, when I see a band list that as a description, I take it to mean more of a stylistic (clothing/hair/makeup) thing rather than sonics. Those foreign bands you cite all seem to go for the mohawked, fishnetted, heavily made up Johny Slut look...

One more thing. I think the thrust of this article overstates the influence of horror movies and horror themes (as opposed to simply "dark" or surreal themes) on deathrock, maybe because so much of the article seems centered around 45 Grave (who certainly were horror movie influenced) and the thoughts of Dinah Cancer. But where is the horror movie element in Kommunity FK? Their aesthetic (visual and lyrical) is more arty and surreal, even sociopolitical at times. I don't see any references or visuals relating to horror. Even Christian Death seem more about surrealism, religion, sexuality, trangression, etc. rather than anything horror-film related. I love horror films myself, I just don't quite grasp why the article makes it seem like they are are such a huge part of the original deathrock style rather than just one of several influences on some of the bands in question, not all. Greg Fasolino 05:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure your right (you were there after all), but the band featured in the film was deffinantly a punk band. They were called "The Blessed" and the only thing I know about them is that they were formed by Howie Pyro who played bass, Walter Lure on guitar, and apparently Johnny Thunders would play with them on occasion. I can't remember, but I think possibly Donna Death the star of They Eat Scum actually sings for them in the film. From what I've been able to find out about them, The Blessed occasionally played with The Misfits and that's how Howie ended up playing with Danzig later on. The Blessed later went on to become The Freaks. The show in the film is undeniably billed as a "Death Rock Show" and the band absolutely looks and vaguely sounds like an early Death Rock band. At any rate, seems this early mention of a Deathrock show, regardless of its relation to West Coast Death Rock, should be mentioned. And I also see your point about the horror themes, but how do you suppose we go about adjusting the article at this point to make it more rounded?--Adrift* 12:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Make whatever changes or corrections you feel are necessary. I've been doing the bulk of the editing on the article and I'm far from the ideal person to be doing it but no one else was willing to step forward to do it (at least anyone who was knowledgeable about the scene). The reason the article ended up emphasizing 45 Grave so much was that in order to prevent people from rewriting it to include inaccurate and biased information, we pretty much had to supply citations for everything here and it's easier to find quotes from Dinah Cancer about the early days than from other musicians. We've had to deal with people who've wanted to merge "deathrock" into "gothic rock" article and others who wanted to rewrite the article to make deathrock sound like a subgenre of heavy metal. I moved the bands to the "merger with gothic rock" section based on your input from above - if you can rewrite it to make it stronger and more accurate, then please do so! I'm severely burned out trying to accommodate all the various viewpoints while keeping out the poachers and trolls. I can't think of anyone better qualified to contribute to the article than a musician from one of the early bands who was right in the middle of things when all this was going on! FilmGal 01:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I sound cranky. It's not directed towards anyone's efforts to improve the article - I've been working on three different film projects at the same time and haven't been getting much sleep for the past couple of weeks. (Which is one of the reasons why I keep hoping someone else will want to take over editing the DR article.) FilmGal 03:32, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I took out the future destinations of Theatre of Ice, I think that it is sufficient to mention where they started. I then included The Mighty Sphincter; they started in Phoenix in 1980 and were very closely connected to the California deathrock scene -- having spawned from the same band as 45 Grave. Somebody needs to really write an article on them.--MALCOMXBLISS 05:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that I rewatched the sequence in They Eat Scum that highlight a Deathrock show (spelled Death Rock in the film). The show is at CBGBs, and there are flyers around the sign advertising the Deathrock show that read Banned. I'm not sure if Banned was a band back then or if it was punk rock propoganda for the show. By the way, earlier in the film the punks decide to go to a Cramps show at Max's Kansas City (this after canabalizing some poor girl), but turns out the Cramps aren't playing.--Adrift* 22:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I did a big edit. Did my best to incorporate the above discussions, and clarify the history section.Greg Fasolino 21:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks good--Adrift* 00:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so very much! Your edits bring some greated needed depth to the article. FilmGal 03:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

They Eat Scum

I hate to keep on harping on this, but it seems very relevant. The film is more or less a "Deathrock" movie on low quality Super 8. The "story" revolves around Suzi Putrid, the lead singer of the punk band the Mental Deficients, who wants to take over the world. There's a wierd side story about her transvestite brother and his dog fetish, her fanatically religious father, and her long lost sister who's been in a coma for years, as well as scenes depicting cannibalism, beastiality, and post-holocaust mutants. Interspersed between all of this are a couple shots of bands playing live sets. Less than half way through the film an actor playing a news reporter reports:

Now here is an interesting story ... about what has recently been termed the alarming new movement among young people known as deathrock. Roving bands of youths apparently inspired by ritual sacrifices of sexual mutilation performed on stage by such deathrock idols as the ghouls, the bloodletters, and suzy putrid and the mental deficients have taken to duplicating these acts on the streets of brooklyn.

Here are some screenshots from the movie. [2] [3] [4] [5] The reason I think this film is important is that I think it absolutely needs at least a mention in the article, and, because of its early release which IMDB confirms as 1979, it may alter parts of the Etymology section (we could probably easily delete the Misfits reference) as well as possibly alter the Origins and Emergence sections.--Adrift* 00:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

THis is interesting. I'd like to see the film myself. How one would incorporate this into the article is something I would think about carefully, since you have to remember, this is a fictional movie about a fictional scene, in a very obscure movie that very few people ever saw. Did the movie in any way influence 45 Grave, Christian Death, or any of the other early LA deathrock bands? If so, maybe it's important. If not, maybe much less so. Certainly nobody I know in the mid-'80s NYC scene had any knowledge or influence of this movie.

Perhaps I would include it in a mention of how the NYC punk scene of the late '70s had certain bands that delved into deathrock themes and scarier sounds. Obviously The Misfits and The Cramps, who were very influential, and also The Mad. You could mention the movie in that context...

Greg Fasolino 05:13, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Well the movie itself is actually pretty bad, i mean Ed Wood bad, but that's Nick Zedd for you. Its funny, but the quality of the film makes it hard to sit through. I agree that the film probably had no impact on the LA bands at the time (if they even saw it), but that the term "deathrock" was used by folks in NYC around the same time as it was being used in LA, and for a similar style of horror themed punk rock, is significant. Not knowing which bands were possibly considered deathrock on the East Coast at the time does make its inclusion a bit difficult, but maybe its a matter of a bit more research. Its odd that the term was forgotten by the mid-80s, but i'm assuming that it wasn't extensively used enough, or long enough, to merit its use later. Also, I agree the film is obscure, but it also has a loyal cult following as do all of Nick Zedd's films. He worked extensively with Lydia Lunch and Richard Kern as part of the No Wave Cinema movement, and worked with folks like Screaming Mad George, Richard Hell, Dream Syndicate, The Swans, and a mess of other folks in the underground (in fact he's still doing off beat underground type stuff in NY, like the Cable Access show Electra Elf). --Adrift* 11:58, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean to insinuate that Zedd was unknown or unimportant. I certainly knew his name back then in the '80s, as would anyone who was interested in the NYC underground art/cinema scene. But at a time without an internet, the shelf life of films that obscure was short. I think the problem here though, is that it's important to understand that this film is fiction, not a documentary. The term "deathrock" had been used in the '50s and '60s, and Zedd obviously thought it would make a cool idea for his movie. Films about fictional punk rock bands were not uncommon at that time---even bigger studio pictures like "Times Square," "Fabulous Stains," etc. The use of the term in the film doesn't mean there were any real bands or real scene in NYC at that time that were described by that term, nor does it mean that "the term deathrock was used by folks in NYC." All we know is that Zedd used it. Again, you can't honestly infer anything about real-life music scenes from a fictional and fanciful movie, much as, say, a film like "The Warriors" from that year is totally fiction and has no real-life correlation to what NYC street gangs were actually like in 1979. Does that make sense? I would recommend further research, sure; maybe someone could discuss it with Zedd himself, but without that, making the film out to be anything but fiction is speculative at best. Greg Fasolino 12:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I understand, and I agree with you, but there seems to be just too much coincidence involved to dismiss it outright. We're not talking about 50s doowop pop music after all, but about slapstick horror themed punk bands in 1979. Its just hard to believe that Zedd just coincidentally came up with the same term that was being used about punk with similar themes on the other coast. Heck, there's at least one webpage that asserts that Nick Zedd came up with the word in the first place (I don't necassarily agree with this though). I'd actually like to write Zedd about it, but I get the feeling that he's not the most approachable person. I'll look into it and get back to you all.--Adrift* 13:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I added a paragraph to "Emergence" discussing the horror-influenced NYC bands of 1978-79 as well as a mention of the Zedd film. Hope that works. Greg Fasolino 13:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Awesome, I appreciate that.--Adrift* 13:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Update: Apparently he was more approachable than i thought. I emailed Nick today and this is what he had to say in reply (hope he doesn't mind me reposting it here):

I did indeed coint the term Deathrock in 1978 when I wrote the script. Donna Death was supposed to be the ultimate Deathrock star. We were briefly roommates with Screaming Mad George of the Mad who also lent me some props and did prosthetic work for my second film The Bogus Man in 1980. I showed The Eat Scum in San Francisco in 1979 as well as around new York where alot of West Cast punks came to the first screenings including members of The Mutants. An interview with me in a newspaper in San Francisco in 1979 mentioned the term Deathrock so probably that's how the people over there got the idea to appropriate the term I remember seeing the Mad & the Cramps back then, but no one used the term Deathrock anywhere until my film used it in 1979 to describe a mythical subculture that went beyond punk. .In 1979 there were no bands on the West Coast that could be described as Deathrock. I also made up a term called Mutant Disco that was appropriated a couple years later in NY by some record label. Both terms refer to fictional scenarios originating in my mind. Hopefully the record will show that.

What do you folks think? Does that pretty much settle it you think? Seems pretty convincing to me.--Adrift* 18:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok I reedited the Etymology section to reflect the info I got from Nick. Anyone want to look over it and make sure it sounds ok??--Adrift* 00:10, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it needs to be significantly shortened to one sentence to match the rest of the paragraph (something like "Nick Zedd used the term 'death rock' in his cult film "They Eat Scum" in 1979), and the rest of the information can be moved back to it's previous position. Actually, the entire article needs to be re-organized (to better fit the new Wiki guidelines) and trimmed a bit. <sigh> FilmGal 17:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I cut several sentances out of what I had added. It might just be me, but I think this is a huge element of the deathrock scene that's been overlooked far too long. I mean, it seems pretty reasonable to say that this is probably where the term originated in connection to the current scene, and it seems only fair that it has as much attention, if not more, than the previous reference to 50s and 60s pop music. I feel pretty silly for going on about it, but I feel that i'm the only one who's defending its use in this article or who thinks that it plays a major part in the developement of the scene. I mean, yeah, the scene would have been there regardless, but still, this seems rather significant, and noone seems to really think its that big of a deal. I think its safe to say that the Misfits probably had nothing to do with the etymology of the term Death Rock considering the late date of "All Hell Breaks Loose", and while I think its still validly debatable weather or not Rozz coined the term, it seems that we'd need better proof than Mark Splatter's opinion about it. I've written Eva O and Dinah Cancer about all of this, but haven't gotten any word back yet. By the way, what are these new Wiki guidelines for organization?--Adrift* 19:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's an interesting historical anecdote, and worthy of mention in this article as a *possible* (not proven) source of the modern term, but why would you think this is a "huge" element of the scene? Remember, it's a fictional film that very few people ever saw during the era in question, by a filmmaker who had no other real connection to any later deathrock music or scene, and the music in the film itself had zero influence. If it was a huge element of the scene, that fact would surely have come out somewhere in interviews with at least some of the bands or fans involved in the scene. Besides, Mr. Zedd can say he "coined" the term, but obviously he didn't, since the term clearly was used in earlier decades. It's more factual to say he reinvented use of the term. Also, a word as obvious and easy to think up as "death rock" could have been independently created more than once. I admire the fact that you researched this so diligently, and like I said, it's certainly worthy of mention, but is it a really big deal? I don't think so. Let's not forget that creating names of musical genres isn't nearly as important as creating the music itself. Greg Fasolino 01:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Sigh... I don't know... it just seems like an incredible coincidence. 1979/punk rock/West Coast viewings/horror theme... I don't know... maybe you folks are right. I was 4 at the time, and living in Rhode Island. Whatever you folks want to do with the article is cool with me, I really respect you all, and after all, the majority of the folks putting the real research and input into this article were a lot closer to the period than I was. I just can't shake the feeling that we're onto something with this, and yeah I realize its really about the music, but, for the Etymology section at least, I think it deserves its place. Noone from the original scene has gotten back to me about this, so i guess I'll just back away from this part of the article for now and see where it goes.--Adrift* 02:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm currently out here in Arizona, sifting thru boxes of fanzines in Brent Johnson's garage, and we got to talking about this very point. Looking at around 2 dozen reviews of their first album and their earlier demos, the terms "death rock", "horror rock", "splatter rock", "b-monster rock".... all get used. He claims that they always called themselves “horror rock” and it was the press that kept calling them “death rock” --- for the most part this was before Only Theatre of Pain was released. So bands like Theatre of Ice that had no connection with the California or East Coast scene, got lumped eventually into a genre by the press. I was watching a documentary on “heavy metal” on Vh1 and they claimed that a reviewer just started using the term “heavy metal” in the 60’s and it took off from there --- I would imagine that “death rock” happened the same way. So did the press just string to obvious words together that described the music or did they remember a Nick Zedd film that depicted what they saw as a similar movement?--MALCOMXBLISS 03:14, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Wiki guidelines for music genres

Adrift asked what the guidelines are for music genre artiles on Wiki. They want the articles organized into the following: 1. Lead, 2. Genrebox, 3. Characteristics, 4. History, 5. Artists, 6. Samples, 7. References, 8. See also, 9. External links, and 10. Footer [6].

I think this indicates that the "characteristics" section needs to be expanded with a better description of the sound of deathrock, and the bulk of the article needs to be rewritten as a chronological history of deathrock, which means the elimination of the "deathrock artists" and "deathrock compared to other subgenres" section. The "artists" section is broken into two lists (modern and classic) on two pages, which is OK (the punk article lists punk artists on a seperate page which is included under the "see also" section). We could probably include a "recent developments" which would explain the deathrock revival movement.

If everyone is OK with this, I'll get started on implimenting some of these changes. I won't be able to anything with the "characteristics" section, that should probably be done by someone who is a musician. FilmGal 16:58, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I slightly trimmed this section (sorry Adrift) to try to shorten the overall article - we're a little over the recommended length (it wasn't enough -we're still over). I also added art punk as a related genre, and if no one objects, I'd like to remove gothabilly (I don't see a very strong connection there). The merger with gothic rock and the re-emergence of deathrock sections need to be trimmed a little too. Sorry I haven't had much time recently to spend on re-organizing the article to better fit Wiki guidelines. FilmGal 08:23, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Made additional changes (moving sections around, re-labeling them, condensing them, etc.) to better fit the Wiki guidelines and keep the article under 30KB in length. FilmGal 21:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to say that I find a lot of the recent changes on here to be really detrimental. First, whoever keeps adding in that very self-indulgent and almost totally irrelevant London After Midnight section, please stop. The band has only the most minor relevance to death rock and shouldn't be given so much space. Second, who deleted the entirety of my piece on the 1984-87 American death rock/post-punk bands that were NOT from the West Coast? These bands were and are relevant to this discussion, as they illustrate that this music was being made and listened to outside of California. And I can say this with authority---I was there! I saw all of the bands I mentioned, and I was in one of them (The Naked and the Dead), and it irritates me that someone would delete this. I come here and try to assist in this page because I do have a little firsthand knowledge of this scene back in the Eighties. Not trying to toot my own horn, but if you look on StarVox or Deathrock.com, it's pretty apparent that these bands (whether Holy Cow, or Of a Mesh, or Shadow of Fear) were and are relevant to this genre and this discussion. So before you try and delete this section again, please explain to me the rationale. Last, why were the useful links to festivals, radio, etc. removed? It looks a lot more dry and boring now at the end of the article. Greg Fasolino 19:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm...so, the irrelevant LAM stuff goes back in, but the historically interesting and quite relevant (at least to us East Coast people) stuff on the mid-'80s non-Cali bands gets dumped again. Since when does whether a band has its own Wiki entry mean it should never be mentioned in a historical overview? I would like to know what everyone else thinks about this...Adrift? MalcomXBliss? Filmgal? If nobody else objects to this, then I guess I am done contributing further to this article, since my primary area of expertise and contribution is illuminating that deathrock music was alive and well in the Eighties outside of the West Coast. How else do you think scenes ever developed in Boston or New York or Detroit? Why not take a look at Deathrock.com or Drop Dead Mag or some other relevant source and see what they think? But hey, if they're not good enough either, then by all means tell me to mind my own business and that this entry is solely meant for West Coast fans, and I'll be happy to butt out. Greg Fasolino 19:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC))

Blue Blood spam

Ok, I see this website keeps been added back to the links in the article, although several users have deleted it. Blue Blood is a cybergoth pornography website, this has nothing at all to do with an encyclopediac article about a music genre, in this case deathrock.

If people were looking for masturbation fodder, they would be looking in a more suitable places; NOT on articles about a music genre, please stop adding the spam link, thanks. - Deathrocker 14:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I just removed them again. The people who run that mag are generally not nice people, plus it has nothing to do with deathrock. Crescentia 23:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I just removed them yet again. Crescentia 19:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed it again. Not a deathrock magazine. Crescentia 04:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Crescentia, if you don't like Cruxshadows or Jack Off Jill or Gothic fashion or Blue Blood, then maybe you should not be editing Gothic and deathrock pages. Hasn't like every deathrocker in America worked with Blue Blood? Even if you don't like Blue Blood, you can't say it is not related. I know BlueBlood.net had their launch party at Release the Bats. How could you masturbate to BlueBlood.net anyway? The photography is very nice, but you'd have to be overexcitable to get off to pictures of people just dressed up. (76.170.56.7 05:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC))

I never said that I disliked either of those bands. They are just not gothic rock. I have a copy of Blue Blood sitting right in front of me and on the cover it says 'Counterculture Erotica'. How is that deathrock? Just because they had a lauch party at Release The Bats does not make them a deathrock publication. Everybody else is saying that putting Blueblood as a link is spam and you are the only person who doesn't. The consensus is that it doesn't belong as a link. Crescentia 15:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, I never said it was 'mastubation fodder'. Do not revert to personal attacks. Crescentia 16:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Please read the whole discussion in Talk here. Someone referred to it as masturbation fodder. It is not a personal attack to ask what someone meant by that. Please answer the questions with proper cites, appropriate to Wikipedia. Hasn't like every deathrocker in America worked with Blue Blood? You say you think the people who run Blue Blood are not nice, so it sounds like you just have some sort of personal beef. Saying someone is not nice is a totally inappropriate justification on Wikipedia. I added Drop Dead, Blue Blood, and Deathrock Magazine because I feel that magazines are important to the scene. If the link were to BlueBlood.com, I could maybe understand a Gothic group disagreeing, but I can't understand a deathrock group disagreeing on BlueBlood.net. Why would they have had their re-launch party for BlueBlood.net if it was totally unrelated to deathrock? How is adding links to scene magazines spam? Drop Dead, Blue Blood, and Deathrock Magazine are all related to the scene. A scene needs publications.(76.170.56.7 17:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC))

The argument is is that it is primarily a 'couterculture erotica' publication and not one whose main subject is

deathrock. It is primarily a fetish/porn magazine. Drop Dead deals primarily with deathrock so its inclusion is

acceptable. Nowhere on the cover of Blue Blood does it state that it is a deathrock subculture magazine. Crescentia 18:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, the Blue Blood website is directly linked to the magazine. Without the magazine they wouldn't have the

website. The website itself is an advertisement for the magazine, so it can be considered spam. Crescentia 18:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am done with you. Go ahead keep it up. Somebody else is just going to come along and say the same things I have

Been saying. This isn't really worth the hassle. It's like talking to a wall. Crescentia 18:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

There are galleries of deathrock photos on BlueBlood.net and I don't see much fetish or any porn. Hasn't like every deathrocker in America worked with Blue Blood? Why would so many important people in deathrock work with Blue Blood, if Blue Blood was not relevant? Why would they have had their re-launch party for BlueBlood.net if it was totally unrelated to deathrock? Why is it spam for me to add Drop Dead, Blue Blood, and Deathrock Magazine? I expect sites to talk about their publications, but I don't consider it spam for them to do so and I don't consider it spam for me to add magazines relating to deathrock to a deathrock entry. You have not answered one question and people are reverting your vandalism all over Wikipedia. This is the least of it. (76.170.56.7 19:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC))

Crescentia, you did yet another revert when asked repeatedly to take your issues to Talk. That is a violation of Wikipedia policy. I am not going to engage in a revert war with you. I am attempting to get you to back up your claims with some sort of proper research. (76.170.56.7 19:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC))

Confusion with Death N Roll

Someone needs to add something about this —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.49.88.32 (talk) 08:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

Derivative Forms

Deathrock is a synonym of the first wave goth rock in America so we can say that the american goth rock movement started from deathrock. So i wrote it in the derivate forms section.

It's an interational Wikipedia, not a northamerican Wikipedia. Death rock isn't identical to the first goth period in Britain. The batcave bands didn't use hard rock elements. It was a parallel movement to the american death rock. --~Menorrhea 10:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well not all Goth Rock started from deathrock, but the american movement did.So deathrock gave its contribution in the gothic rock movement.But..if you don't want to add goth rock as a darivative form-ok.

Current status of article

The article is but a shell of it's former self; all of it's former editors who were part of the scene since it's early days were driven away along with their knowledge and expertise by people who know nothing about the deathrock scene. Mediocrity and uninformed opinion reign supreme. FilmGal 02:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree.